Ege Bamyeezy

I like Kanye's Dark Beautiful Miasma, but it's his second straight album that won't be on my year-end list. Graduation, from 2007, was on that year's.

I was lucky to be invited to the advance-listening session for press for it (and for the two that came before). For this one, which was at a movie theater in Midtown, he stood onstage and took questions afterward. I was totally floored when this song had come on, to hear the booted melody line (from Can's "Sing Swan Song"). Against form, I strenuously raised my hand in an effort to get his attention in a theater of possibly a thousand people. He pointed to me and I realized I didn't really have a question; it was more that I somehow had to acknowledge that he used a Can song. I blurted out, "Where did you first hear the Can song you used as a basis for 'Drunk and Hot Girls'? People sitting around me turned to look (and afterward, a bunch of them descended on me, notebooks and pens in hand, to ask who Can was), but Kanye either didn't fully hear me or he was just rolling so hard on his cocktail of adrenaline and pride that he heard only what he wanted. "Yeah, that was a Can song," was all he said, before launching into a long and weird and somewhat caddish explanation of what the song is about. Which is summarized well by its title.